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An anonymous reader writes "Last year Australian authorities tapped more phones all United States authorities combined. Australian phones were tapped at 20 times the rate of phones in the US according to this article in the Sydney Morning herald. The fact was revealed during a debate in the Australian parliament. The government is attempting to pass new legislation to to make it even easier for the country's domestic spy agency ASIO to tap phones."Update: 09/16 14:07 GMT by T: Julian Assange writes "The Australian is also running the story and has better stats." Thanks for the link.

And being one of those Australians who has been tapped - let me tell you it is not nice.
Especially when you are innocent.
How did you find out you were being tapped?
Was it just an uncomfortable feeling from knowing you'd been tapped, or have you actually had some of your stuff played back to you, etc.?

A friend of mine was raided by the Federal Police in full gear. They spent over $1 million ($500,000 $US) trying to get this guy..... And they turned up _nothing_ We found out from a contact in the Federal Police that naturally his phone was tapped, as were all his closer friends (this includes me).

It disturbes me that I was watched because of guilt by association with someone who was NOT guilty of anything.

that's nothing. in america we spent over $30 million investigating one guy over a land deal and ended up barely being able to prove that he lied to people that he had an affair - and that was just because a private citizen illegally recorded some phone conversations.

as usual we americans are better at everything - including abusing civil liberties. so there.

not to be too picky about your little rant there but the first amendment is:

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I'm pretty sure Australia has most if not all of that somewhere in their constitution as well. What they don't have is something like our second amendment which is:

Amendment II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

But i'm just one of those types who is picky about which amendment is which.

Not trying to be funny, or anything, but isn't Australia in the same position as the UK, in that it doesn't have a written constitution? Just a network of constitutional laws and acts, and a supporting set of court judgements that delineate the powers of the state. I apologize for my ignorance, but if Australia is in the same position as the UK, then there is a problem with constitional rights, because there is nowhere that these rights are explicitly stated.
For instance, with regard to freedom of speech, the UK government can use something called a D-notice to suppress press reports that it doesn't like, although there has been a lot of controversy about this, and I think that the use of this power is limited by the courts. I don't claim to be a big expert on this.
I live in Russia, and used to work for a multilateral organisation here. We were always happy that our phones were bugged, because then the Russians might actually believe that we meant the advice that we gave them.

For instance, with regard to freedom of speech, the UK government can use something called a D-notice to suppress press reports that it doesn't like

As I understand it D-notices was/is a somewhat bizarre scheme, a kind of gentleman's agreement between newspaper editors and the Department of Defense whereby the DoD would supply the newspaper editors with privilaged access to certain information if they agreed not to publish it. It wasn't a legal thing as far as I am aware - the editors could (and some did) tell the DoD to stuff their D-notices.

With regards to freedom of speech in the UK it is something that is pretty fundamental. For instance UK journalists and newscasters are really hard questioners and don't give politicians an easy time in the way they do in many countries...

As I understand it D-notices was/is a somewhat bizarre scheme, a kind of gentleman's agreement between newspaper editors and the Department of Defense whereby the DoD would supply the newspaper editors with privilaged access to certain information if they agreed not to publish it. It wasn't a legal thing as far as I am aware - the editors could (and some did) tell the DoD to stuff their D-notices.

No. It involves the Offical Secrets Act, and basically amounts to "information about the theft of that anthrax from Porton Down is classified. If you tell anyone about it, we'll lock you up." There's a specific exemption to our Freedom of Expression for "national security" - basically, the Ministry of Defence (MoD; DoD is the US version) can just turn up and gag you on any matter they feel like. They can't gag you about, say, a politician screwing his secretary, but anything military or relating to the security services is another matter: just ask David Shayler...

(The theft I mention was actually referred to by one paper at the time: the British lab at Porton Down was broken into, and had three things stolen - one being a sample of Foot and Mouth, another being Anthrax. For some strange reason, it wasn't referred to again...)

Nope, I think I was correct in my orginal post. From the official web site (www.dnotice.org.uk):

"The DA-Notices are intended to provide to national and provincial newspaper editors, to periodicals editors, to radio and television organisations and to relevant book publishers, general guidance on those areas of national security which the Government considers it has a duty to protect. The Notices, together with a General Introduction, details of the Committee and how to contact the Secretary, are widely distributed to editors, producers and publishers and also to officials in Government departments, military commanders, chief constables and some institutions. The Notices have no legal standing and advice offered within their framework may be accepted or rejected partly or wholly."

I have also read an opinion piece about D-Notices by the editor of a national publication (I don't remember which), in which he said he basically ignored them. It is a system that apparently used to work - when it was a gentlemen's agreement type thing - but doesn't really any more.

Actually, Australia's constitution came into effect on 1 Jan 1901 - the day we federated. So it was quite a significant day. It established and defined the relationship between the all states. It took a long time to develop - and was done by a group of clear-thinking, diverse people in a fiery debate - where no one got killed.

(People often walked out, but no one got killed. And the process went for years) until finally the fiction that is the Australian constitution was born. Somehow, we managed to develop a Clayton's monarchy, (the monarchy you have when you're not having a monarchy).

And now lots of people want to change the constitution - because of this very clever fiction. But I'm sure in the process they'll remove a lot of the freedoms that are currently afforded to Australian's if they are allowed to change it one iota. Then we won't be able to walk down the street with the right to be free from fear of drive-by shootings and there will proabably be more allowances and less restrictions phone tappings by incompetent organisations like ASIO.

If ASIO were so good at tapping phones, how come the newspaper knows about it? Is it just me, or is the real story - we know about more Aussies having their phones tapped than we know about American phones being tapped?

Now the CIA, there's an agency that really knows where its towel is (and how to keep its phone-tapping under wraps).

The Australian Constitution does not guarantee us any freedoms at all. If you read it, it's all about how power is divided between the State and Federal governments and the Governor General. There's no Bill of Rights, no guarantees of anything for the citizens save the right to vote in elections. Australian governments can pass any oppressive legislation they want.

We do have a pretty lame kind of freedom of speech, but you won't find it anywhere in the constitution. That's because the High Court invented it out of nowhere in the late 80's. It was an interesting case - the government of the day tried to pass a law restricting spending on political advertisements, the TV companies sued, and a one-judge majority in the High Court decided that we had a "freedom of political speech" implied in the constitution. In other words, "It's not there, but it should be so we'll pretend it is." The logic they used was tenuous to say the least.

Being a High Court decision, and a narrow majority, it could be overruled any time.

So there's no wonder we have more phone-taps than the USA. They have constitutional protection against unreasonable search, all we have is a Common Law doctrine of evidence that will mostly (but not always) suppress evidence that was illegally obtained.

Charles Miller

(Who isn't a lawyer, but did pass Constitutional Law before he dropped out of University to become a programmer)

[1st Amendment]... I'm pretty sure Australia has most if not all of that somewhere in their constitution as well.

Well, no and yes. The Australian Constitution [austlii.edu.au] is largely based on the US Constitution, but does not include anything resembling the Bill of Rights. There is no explicit right of free speech written into the Constitution.

However, in a number of cases, most famously Aust. Capital TV v C'th [austlii.edu.au], the High Court discovered an implicit "Freedom of Political Communication", woven into the fabric of the Constitution, (ie. since the constitution sets up a representative democracy, there must be a presumption of a politically informed electorate, and this implies a right to be informed.)

Note that this freedom of communication is restricted to political matters ('political' as it relates to the electoral process). It seems unlikely, for example, that a pornograper could argue for constitutional protection under this principle.

I think that maybe CIA/FBI statistics are a little less forthcoming than those from ASIO. With all these measures to prevent terrorism, I'd assume that the CIA and FBI combined would be at least 20 times what they were just over a year ago anyway.

In short: I don't believe it.

The USA can keep dreaming that they have privacy, but guys, face it - you don't live in the land of the free any more.

I never got the whole big deal about "The Land of The Free". What's so "free" in the states that isn't in any other western country (Canada, Germany, U.K., Sweden, The Netherlands, France, Denmark, Iceland, Belgium, etc.etc.).

I travel a *lot* and personally I feel more free and more save in Europe then I do in the states, especially in my home country The Netherlands. And that has nothing to do with the 11th. I've felt like this for years.

I never got the whole big deal about "The Land of The Free". What's so "free" in the states that isn't in any other western country (Canada, Germany, U.K., Sweden, The Netherlands, France, Denmark, Iceland, Belgium, etc.etc.).

I travel a *lot* and personally I feel more free and more save in Europe then I do in the states, especially in my home country The Netherlands. And that has nothing to do with the 11th. I've felt like this for years.

I agree with you, and I have posted opinions like this to Slashdot before. However, it's best just not to bother posting this type of stuff. You will just get insulted and called communist/ liberal/ socialist/ Eurotrash/ America-hater and whatever. Just don't post this kind of opinion. Lots of Americans just aren't tolerant of it. (Ironic isn't it? For people that go on about freedom of speech so much!)

I agree with you, and I have posted opinions like this to Slashdot before. However, it's best just not to bother posting this type of stuff. You will just get insulted and called communist/ liberal/ socialist/ Eurotrash/ America-hater and whatever. Just don't post this kind of opinion. Lots of Americans just aren't tolerant of it. (Ironic isn't it? For people that go on about freedom of speech so much!)

That being said, as an American, I cringe at those comments you're talking about, because free speech also doesn't mean that you should shoot your mouth off without thinking every time someone presses your buttons. And anyone who uses words like "commie" or "eurotrash" in serious conversation is, by definition, not worth paying attention to.

Anyway... It's true that now many European countries have just as much freedom as the US. But you've got to look at the historical background. At the time of the War of 1812 (when the lines "land of the free and home of the brave" were written) every other great power in the world was a monarchy (unles you want to argue that France under Napoleon was somehow less a monarchy than the rest of Europe under traditional dynasties; I wouldn't.) Ironically, the only other great power in the world that could lay claim to anything approaching the degree of freedom the US offered in those days was Britain, which was slowly approaching a de facto democracy even then. But the idea of the US as uniquely free was really quite accurate then, and it was burned into our national consciousness.

I'm the child and grandchild of immigrants, and I've lived outside the US for substantial periods of time; I know that we're not all there is to the world, and that there are many other places in the world that offer a very good life. I am also a veteran and a patriot; I love my country and hope that it will retain its historical role as a beacon of freedom in a world where too many are oppressed. That's why current trends, both in the US and throughout the free world, scare the shit out of me.

Anyway... It's true that now many European countries have just as much freedom as the US. But you've got to look at the historical background. At the time of the War of 1812 (when the lines "land of the free and home of the brave" were written) every other great power in the world was a monarchy... the only other great power in the world that could lay claim to anything approaching the degree of freedom the US offered in those days was Britain.

Worth noting that during the War of 1812 many of those living
in the USA were living as slaves.

I believe that, during the War of 1812, the UK was farther along in abolishing slavery than was the USA. FWIW.

Sorry to nitpick, but I think that, in 1812, the USA fell a bit short of "great power" status.

Being from Germany and imigrating to the US there are some differences.

In the US I am free from Church Tax.

In the US I have freedom of speech and assembly that is far beyone what I would in Germany.

I was in Germany this summer visiting my family and while I was there they were arresting people for being in a neo-nazi organization. They had commited no crime other than being raving idiots. My point is, in europe they are much more willing to take away free speech rights when they disagree with you than in the US.

In Germany you also don't have the right to be protected from self-incrimination the way you do in the US.

I could keep rambling, but it really dosn't matter. The people in europe are OK with the fact that their Govmts are more restrictive, so to bad for them it is their choice.

I know a lot of you out there think that your home countries are a lot safer, more interesting, etc.... and I agree. But you forget one thing about it. America is a real soup of people, and NOTHING COMES EASY IN AMERICA.

That is the nature of the soup that is the good 'ol USA. Most of the people that are from Finland and Norway say that there are no tensions and no problems at all with others.. well, move to Minnesota or the Upper Penninsula in the USA and you will notice that there is less violence there too... on the count that there really are less ethnic-religious-governmental-general-people tensions. Its the land of happy, slightly overweight hockey playing white guys. Lots of cheese.

I mean honestly, what the hell is there to argue about in Finland? Do you have a thousand cabbies that come from every country in the world and can't understand you, nor you understand them when they speak? Do you have hundreds of religious groups pining for their big piece of the political pie? Do you have anything that might get you annoyed like that? Unregistered illegal Mexican drivers that ran over kids in a schoolyard and then get no punishment because they are not US citizens, and caused all of this becasue they can't be bothered to read and understand English road signs?

WHY DOES AMERICA HAVE ALL OF THESE PROBLEMS? Because when poor, uneducated, huddled masses think of travelling to a land of prosperity they don't look around their straw hut and say, "Let's go to Iceland!"

Don't get me wrong. That's a good thing about being an American. But also you don't get this: when a Mexican punk drug dealer shoots a Texas cop on a sting in front of police, you also don't get an international incident where Vincente Fox shows his ass as a "show of power" to the American people over a P.O.S. drug dealer. The last time I checked, the Netherlands hasn't sent troops anywhere to save people. SO the Netherlands hasn't drawn any heat for it either. Believe it or not, there are several places in the world where people are excited to see me because I am a representative of America. Not everyone will try to kidnap me.

America-bash away. I don't blame anyone for liking a home country where everyone basically acts and looks the same as you... sounds great. Never had that. Probably pretty nice.

WE ARE JUST DIFFERENT, WITH DIFFERENT PROBLEMS. NOT BETTER OR WORSE THAN ANYONE, JUST WITH DIFFERENT PROBLEMS. But you can't really blame the USA for going crazy every day. You'd be nuts too if you had this many people that can't agree.

And another thing. When everyone says we don't need an army it just makes me laugh. Well, that is because we are doing the job for you. Keep in mind that if anyone invaded Norway, Iceland, The Netherlands, Australia, beautiful New Zealand, or anywhere else civilized... we might have the jets in the air faster than you might have yours. Why?

NOT BECAUSE AMERICA WANTS TO BE MR. BADASS ALL THE TIME. Its actually simpler than that.

That is what true friends do for friends when they need help. We'd kick butt again for France or Germany (or the Netherlands) in a second if they needed it. Of course, the UK doesn't even need to ask. You get punched silly for even looking at the UK in front of the USA.

El Camino SS said America was a more dangerous
place and, needed more wiretaps, than countries with ethnically
homogeneous populations. He said the ethnic heterogenity created
arguments that made
America less safe.

Wasn't he advocating, in his ramblings,
that more widespread, less accountable, wiretaps were a perfectly acceptable solution to violence, terrorism, and obnoxious, annoying,
"argumentative" foreign-born cab-drivers?

Please go re-read his article, and then tell me if you still think
I am overlooking the obvious.

Oh yeah, and while you are at it, if you believe you live in the
"land of the free", why are you hiding behind "anonymous coward"?

If El Camino SS really believes in freedom, he has to expect to
be challenged when he advocates draconian surveillance for those
who stand out as different.

Do you believe in free speech? Do you believe the way to counter
a view you don't agree with is to suppress it? Do you believe the
way to counter a view you don't agree with is to swear, and call
the other person names?

Did you know there is another approach? You could try to
explain what you disagreed with.

Read what the guy said. He said the USA was justified to issue
wiretaps to suppress violence. He said that the USA needed more
wiretaps because it had an ethnically diverse population.

What about due process? Should tools like wiretaps be used for
suppression, or should the authorities wait until they can document
good reasons for their use?

My reading of El Camino SS's contribution was that he was
prepared to see wiretaps used for suppression, without any of
this time-consuming respect for civil rights. That is my honest
interpretation -- not a troll.

for one thing because they keep doing all the dirty work that so obviously are way beneath what you could ask an nth-generation citizen to do.)

Personally, I don't have a lot of hate for bad examples, but I can really say this one out loud and on slashdot over THAT STATEMENT...

FUUUUUCK YOU.

You really can't sell me that shit.

First of all, I never met my grandfather because a mine cave-in. So if you would like to sell me the one about the dirty fucking jobs out there for the immigrants, then you are barking up the wrong tree. The only reason my people got out of the mines was because one generation had an errant gene that made them too tall.

At least the immigrants get to see the fucking sun during the Winter. SO FUUUUCK YOU. There are plenty of Americans that get their hands dirty, and bust ass for little money. AND PAY TAXES ON IT.

But let's not dwell on the immigrants, lets talk about the one group that has been here 150 years (juuuust right after the colonists), and still gets treated like shit.

Yes, I'm talking black people in America.

What about my black friends that have been here for generations and still can't get a decent fucking job? What about them? Yeah. You're right. Poor immigrants. Their problem is that they can't speak the language. NO! Their problem is that they don't pay taxes. Black people pay taxes and work right next to them. Talk about a fuck job.

You know what the difference is in America between a black man in a car with a license and an immigrant hispanic without one? THE FUCKING FLASHING LIGHTS BEHIND THE BLACK MAN'S CAR.

POOR IMMIGRANTS. Always so polite. Blend in so well. Never drunk in public, or stealing your shit. NEVER EVER PLAYING THEIR STEREO TOO LOUD AT THREE A.M. NEVER PARKING IN YOUR STREET WITH THE THREE THOUSAND CARS SUPER-EXPENSIVE CARS THAT BELONG TO THEIR ONE HOUSE.

I guess I resent the fact that Third-Worlders come over, and then act like the Third World all over again. Its about the fucking courtesy... not the festivals.

By the way, I understand that you English is not the greatest, but keep it up... I can tell that you are getting better. I am not being sarcastic. I appreciate you trying to use your foreign language skills.

However... I would not move to Spain unless I had a good grasp of the language. Nor would I drive illegally, nor enter the country illegally, nor would I not pay taxes and then try to get free health benefits.

Just because I see that the people of another country are coming here and cannot understand the language doesn't mean I hate them, I am just pointing out that "it ain't easy brother."

I travel a *lot* and personally I feel more free and more save in Europe then I do in the states, especially in my home country The Netherlands. And that has nothing to do with the 11th. I've felt like this for years.

"Feeling" free is an awfully vague statement. How many situations have you been in where your freedom was genuinely put to the test? For example, have you ever been charged with a crime in any of these countries?

Partly you feel more 'free' in the Netherlands and in Europe because those places are more like home to you. I'm from the southern US, and I certainly feel a bit more 'free' there than I do in NYC, where I live. While there are some differences in the laws of those two places, they aren't large, and if anything, the laws down south are more restrictive.

I'm in total agreement with you. Also has anyone thought that with Carnivore and our (remaining) rights here in America that maybe the CIA/FBI/NSA are just having the Aussies tap the American lines for them so as to prevent all those nasty civil rights violations we always hear in the media? Notice in the article it says "The data also reveals that the number of phone taps used *IN* Australia has increased threefold in four years, and ninefold in just over a decade" and "The Australian figures include *INTERCEPTIONS BY* the National Crime Authority, the Australian Federal Police and state policing agencies, but exclude ASIO." Nowhere does it say these are all domestic taps. I read somewhere thats how our government was getting around those pesky rights of ours, in regards (but not limited) to Carnivore, by having foreign governments do the tapping and keeping their hands clean of the matter. Seeing as how we are close allies with the Aussies it's not hard to believe that any information relavent to a case would be turned over to the American government. In the article it mentions how easy it is to get taps in the country so why go to a local judge when a tribunal half way around the world can get it done alot easier. I know this sounds all Men In Black, super spy, conspiracy theorist but I could have sworn I read about the skirting of our rights in regards to Carnivore on Slashdot a while back.

I think that maybe CIA/FBI statistics are a little less forthcoming than those from ASIO. With all these measures to prevent terrorism, I'd assume that the CIA and FBI combined would be at least 20 times what they were just over a year ago anyway.In short: I don't believe it.The USA can keep dreaming that they have privacy, but guys, face it - you don't live in the land of the free any more.

In other words:If the data doesn't line up with your ideology. You must discount it. Sure, be skeptical, but just because U.S. is bad, doesn't mean it's the worst.

Australia can keep dreaming that they have privacy, but guys, face it -- you don't live in the land of the free any more either

*Officially bored of the blanket bash U.S. policy. Please provide facts, figures and fair comparisons between other countries.

The BVD (Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdient: Internal Security Service), is best compared with the NSA, not the CIA, as the BVD isn't allowed to spy abroad.

That would make them comparable to the FBI. Neither the CIA nor NSA is allowed to handle domestic spying. That's why everybody got their knickers in a knot when Nixon had the CIA tell the FBI to stop looking into Watergate because of "the Bay of Pigs" invasion.

Echelon makes this kind of irrelevant. The 5 countries that are part of Echelon (US, UK, Canada, Australia, and NZ) can basically listen in on ANY phone call/fax/email/IP etc in any of the other countries. There are some computers here in New Zealand that are directly controlled by the US (NSA I think). This means that the NZ govt (and Aust govt etc) can listen to US phone calls. Now part of the reason it is set up like this is that the US authorities can use the NZ bit of the network to listen to US calls. This way it is technically not "domestic spying" as it is occurring over here.

I guess the wiretaps they're talking about here are for court-issued wiretaps for the police, rather than the secret services.

I knew I wasn't losing my mind when I posted this [slashdot.org] basically when you were also typing your response. Thanks for proving to me (and others by default) that I'm not a loony (or at least the only one)

I've been friend and associate of enough interesting activists that ther have been times when I just pre-emptively presumed that my line was being tapped (there was actually one instance where I had some circumstantial evidence that my line really was being tapped.

I know that one friend of mine had her phone line bugged over some activist work she was doing. She saw the transcripts. Her comment on it was "all they got were some really nice recipies".

Not that all that stopped me from saying much: As Ghandi once said:

Let then know exactly what you're going to do, and then hope that they overreact

Hi: You've reached the home of Stephen and Regan. Unfortunately, our answering machine is broken, but that's OK -- Our phone line is being tapped. So speak clearly and we'll get the transcripts from our lawyers.

Most people recognized it as a joke, but a couple took it seriously... Regan's mom, particularly left a message worrying about whether or not we were going to get the message, and what kind of roommates did he have that we were getting our line tapped?

As the article also states that:"
However despite the greater reliance on phone taps, it seems Australian authorities have had less success with solving crimes. Figures also show that in 2000-2001 Australian agencies made 1033 arrests and obtained 623 convictions, while US authorities made 3683 arrests with 732 convictions."

So, maybe this means that phone-tapping in Australia has become the default part of crime solving-process at very early stage and that the right to phonetap can be obtained on very vague basis. Atleast here in Finland, AFAIK, it goes so that first they have to show quite strong evidence, and then if the evidence exists they can phonetap to get more evidence. In australia - based on these figures - it seems to be the reverse: phonetap to get initial evidence, then do rest of research.

Actually, no. Just something wrong with my copy-pasting. What I was supposed to copy-paste was supposed to include this: "more than 2150 warrants were issued for phone taps in Australia, but only 1490 in the US".

Actually, no. Just something wrong with my copy-pasting. What I was supposed to copy-paste was supposed to include this: "more than 2150 warrants were issued for phone taps in Australia, but only 1490 in the US".

Federal phone taps are generally granted only for RICO (Organized Crime) and counter-Intelligence/Terrorist activities. The numbers do not reveal "unofficial" taps conducted illegally. (which are not admissible in court)

I suspect that the statistics also do not show taps granted by local police forces. The phones of even smallish drug dealers are routinely tapped by narcs.

Other than when leaving messages, it takes more than one person to talk on the phone. Add to this the fact that phone-taps last for multiple calls which means multiple people, and the fact that people often talk about other people while on the phone, suddenly it's not so amazing. 1490*2=2980; 1490*3=4470 Talking to at least 2 other people on the phone over a short period of time is not unusual, especially if you're organizing something.

I'm surprised nobody's yet made a joke about Australia being founded by criminals... although if that were really the main factor, you'd think that they'd have a LOWER conviction rate, since they're all, you know, professional criminals from birth and probably have lots of training.:)

The modus operandi in the US is to just arrest anything that moves or speaks, and work from there. We're not much on proof before arrest; actually, arrest isn't indication of a case the cops want to persue -- arrest has simply become a crowd-control mechanism in the states. Grab 'em, hold 'em, let 'em go without charging them, and if they talk, bonus! Some countries consider this harassment, but not the Land of the Free-from-Terror. There's very little chance that in any given situation the cops can't provide some kind of pretext for arrest, not that their actions are questioned very often, as the Drug War has eroded police oversight to a frightening degree.

I should be happy, because Australia is worse than the US in this regard?Sorry, that's bullshit.I suppose I should shut up because because I don't have to deal with the GFoC either?Fuck it, none of this is important. I shouldconcentrate on bitching about the RIAA instead.My bad.

I don't know where you're getting your numbers from, but I'd bet you're assuming the entire budget of said intelligence agency divided by the number of wiretaps. This is as valid as me looking at the cost of office supplies in a year and saying "Geez you people buy a lot of Post-It's!" You assume the entire budget is used for one thing.

So you have the numbers for the budget for wiretaps? Impressive. Somehow, though, I doubt you actually have those numbers, but instead are actually taking some figure for the "intelligence" budget and dividing by 1490. That's pretty goddamn stupid. Please, think before posting.

Does anyone really believe that the entire US spy industry only taps 1490 phones per year???

That would fit with the figures reported a few years ago.
Scientific American had a brief article about wiretaps
some years ago. At that time there were approximately
600 Federal wiretap warrants and about 600 State wiretap warrants
issued per year.

I thought to myself, "1200 warrants? They why are they making
such a big deal over clipper?"

But some time later the CBC did an item on how powerful a net a
single warrant could cast in the USA.

There was one warrant, that cost millions, where the LAPD tapped
the phone that prisoners could get to use. This warrant was in
place for a long time. Eighteen months? Several years? I
can't recall. But it cost so much because it ran so long, and
it was being audited 24/7.

The cops who listened in to wiretaps in LA had a standard
operating procedure. If they knew, from their taps, that someone
was going to be driving somewhere, with some kind of illegal
material onboard, they would phone in to the Police dispatch board,
on an ordinary phone. Dispatch would send officers to pull over the
car, make an excuse for a search, arrest the perpetrators.
When the paperwork was completed, the justification for pulling
the car over in the first place was the "anonymous tip" they
got. They would write it up as if an ordinary citizen phoned
in reporting erratic driving, or reasonable equivalent.

Abuse of warrants like this could make the USA's 1500 legal
warrants far more effective than more reasonably implemented,
more restricted warrants.

I kind of doubt US government agencies could give an accurate accounting of how many phones they have tapped if they wanted to, and they probably don't even want to. And "tapped" probably doesn't take into account any kind of monitoring and audio keyword search that isn't aimed at a specific person.

POLICE are being given authority to tap telephone conversations atsuch an unprecedented rate that Australians are 20 times more likelyto be bugged than Americans. But despite the rate of tappingincreasing ninefold over the past decade, the ability of Australianauthorities to secure convictions as a result of listening totelephone calls is lower than in the US.

In the past four years alone, the number of phone-tap warrantsapproved by the courts and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal hastripled from 675 to 2157 - one-third more than all state and federaltaps approved in the US.

In contrast to the US, our national security authorities, includingthe Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation, do notpublish statistics of their bugs.

The extent of the tapping has prompted federal Labor justicespokesman Daryl Melham to call for a new body to oversee the useof phone taps by Australian police, possibly based on a model usedin Britain , which has a chief surveillance commissioner.

"There is an urgent need to strengthen the resources available forexternal scrutiny of telephone interception activities and otherforms of intrusive surveillance," Mr Melham said.

Labor analysis shows that only seven of the 2164 police applicationsfor interception warrants were rejected by the courts last year.Since 1999, when Administrative Appeals Tribunal officers werefirst given power to issue warrants, numbers have increased sharply.

AAT officers now issue 94 per cent of all warrants, Family Courtjudges 5 per cent, and Supreme Court judges only 1 per cent.

The Australian Council of Civil Liberties said the explosion inwarrants showed that police were forum shopping and targetingsympathetic judicial officers.

Cameron Murphy, secretary of the council, demanded the federalGovernment publish more detailed information to reveal if a handfulof judges and officials were responsible for most of the warrants.

"We think Australians would be aghast if they knew so many people'sphone conversations were being bugged," Mr Murphy said.

Labor also warned that Australian police were achieving far fewercriminal convictions per phone tap than US authorities.

Between 1996 and 2001, US police made 3.31 arrests and secured 1.55convictions for each phone tap.

Over the same period Australian agencies made only 0.63 arrestsper phone tap and 0.46 convictions.

A spokesman for Mr Melham said technological advances were part ofthe reason for the explosion in tapping.

All telecommunications providers were now required to constructtheir facilities so that police could tap phones centrally insteadof climbing telegraph poles.

Whenever a country experiences a surge in crime,
(because of a bad economy or new methods by crooks
or a new street drug) it runs the risk of a
major backlash in the form of draconian punishments,
abolition of civil liberties, and sometimes vigilantism. The backlash never solves the problem,
which means it can repeat itself again and again. The appearance of crack cocaine in America caused the public to tolerate aggressive tactics by the
DEA and then by other TLAs, culminating in Waco.
Europe and Australia now tolerate promiscuous phone tapping. Britain is almost a panopticon now,
and is loosening regulations on psychiatric commitment. Eternal vigilance, folks. Nothing else suffices.

Looks like our little Johnny Howard has been following the lead of the US more than we first imagined. I'd imagine he'll be constructing the Aussie version of the PATRIOT Act next. Depressing and, at the same time, completely unsuprising.

It's ok. Howard can destroy our rights all he likes. As long as there are some Little Yellow People to distract and blame for our ills, we'll keep voting for him (my, isn't he tough and strong!). Well I don't... but your average Aussie is still racist.

Shows how much you know about Australia. What bullshit. The words and actions of a vocal and (unfortunately) influential minority do not a country make. There were a lot of people who voted against John Howard in the last election, myself included. Are you saying that I, as well as all these other people, are racists? I don't think so.

But hey, while we're on stereotypes here, can I say that the average American is a fat, ignorant git who's more than willing to give up his "freedoms" in order to feel "safe" again? I don't believe that's true, but you'd be suprised what people would believe in the absence of the truth.

I don't like the fact, and I know there are heaps of non-racist Australians... but a lot of people vote for Howard. and a lot of people voted for One Nation!

That I agree with. But it's more accurate to say that One Nation has been (rightfully) confined to the "lunatic fringe" section of politics and is not the great threat to the mainstream parties that it apparently once was. The main frustration I have with Australian politics at the moment is that there really is no worthy opposition to the current government and that, knowing how fucked-up the current government can and has been, is a pretty scary thing. What I'd like to see is something like in Sweden (where I am at the moment) - a social democracy. But that would require increased taxes and a combining of the two types of politics (which might require, *gasp*, agreeing on things) and given the inability of Australian politicians to even suggest either or both possibilites, I don't see it happening in the near future.

This report came from FOI requests made by the Opposition (the minority party), who are opposing further extensions to wiretapping laws.

These bills are thus likely to fail in the Senate, as the opposition is opposing the bill and the green-left minor parties that hold the balance of power were *never* going to vote in favour of it.

This is (at last) a somewhat politically courageous action by the opposition, because standing up for civil liberties is rarely politically advantagous and will run the risk of the government accusing them of risking Australia's national security or some such nonsense. Kudos to Labor for actually showing a little backbone.

Since even those in chage say that the number underreported ia on an order or mangitude higher than those reported. These numbers also don't take into account US customs whose records were destroyed in the 9/11 attacks. They are still trying to re-create those records from ancilarry data.

Man in Black: Truly you have a dizzing intellect.Vizini: Wait 'til I get going. Where was I?Man in Black: Australia.Vizini: Yes, Australia. And everybody knows Australia is entirely peopled by criminals... and criminals are used to people not trusting them as YOU are not trusted by me. Therefore I can clearly not chose the wine in front of you.

That about do it folks? Can't believe nobody posted this already. *shakes head*

Some years ago TVO, Ontario's public educational channel, had a series
on new technology. They devoted one show to surveillance, bugging,
wiretapping. They very interviewed these two different guys.
One was with a guy who sold bug detectors. The other interview was
with a grizzled old cop in Washington DC. He looked like Joe Friday.
The bug-detector salesman kept touting his products, and saying
how good they were at detecting bugs. The grizzled cop kept saying
how difficult it was to be sure you weren't being bugged. Finally
he said:

You can never know when you are being bugged. None of our bugs
has ever been detected. Why we have conducted over 1,000 legal
wiretaps alone.

This is impossible! Everyone knows that the United States is the world's most corrupt nation, and violates more individual liberties than the next five corrupt nations combined. The US is the home of Microsoft, the MPAA and the RIAA. Alan Cox boycotts the US, not Australia.

and america consists of gun tooting wankers who think that their right to have a gun (in their constitution) is because the king of england (yes i know we have a queen) MIGHT invade.....hows that for paranoia:-)